Custom-tailored, hand-sewn kilts in Scotland's Finest Tradition

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Working My Way Through the Pile of Fabric

Here we are in March. I have been sewing for some time, and now it will get easier to stick to the task. It’s almost baseball season, and I have the Red Sox to keep me company as I sew. It sounds crazy, but I really enjoy having the Sox on while I work. I only have to look up from time to time (at the crack of the bat, for example, or when Jerry Remy starts to get excited). The games are usually on at 7:00 or so, which is when I’m at work after dinner, so it all works perfectly.

I have not always been a baseball fan, but in recent years I have really come to enjoy it. I’m a member of Red Sox Nation, I get online the moment tickets go on sale (yes, I got some), and I watch most of the games as late as I can. When they play on the West Coast I have to wait until morning to find out how they did. My favorite player is Mike Lowell, but since he retired, I have to find a new one. Am I nuts? Probably not–it’s not an obsession. I did get a kick out of it when, in 2007, the Sox wore kilts during the parade through Boston with theDropkick Murphys, who are the band that play Papelbon’s theme song “Shipping up to Boston.” It really was a hoot to see them dancing.

There are at least 6 kilts waiting for me right now. A couple are for little girls, so those aren’t a big deal, and one is for a guy. One of the others is for my husband, and it’s a pretty special piece of fabric. He wove a kilt length of O’Sullivan tartan, and I am going to make him a kilt. It is beautiful–I never expected it to be this nice, and I can’t wait to get to it. It is predominantly blue and green, with smaller stripes of red, gold, black, and white. He is having a box-pleated kilt made out of it. This will be SO COOL. Fortunately, there is no cutting away the insides of the pleats with a box-pleated kilt. I don’t know how I would ever bring myself to cut it up.

Kilt camp seems to be coming together nicely. Charlene and Heather do a super job of organizing everything, so I just show up and do my thing. This year will be extra special. Ann Smith, a friend and longtime denizen of Kilt Camp, will be my assistant this year. She has many talents, not the least of which is that she has mastered kiltmaking as a leftie–very difficult. We are hoping to provide even better instruction by having two people, and plan to do several things: We want to have the opportunity to teach more advanced techniques to returning students, in order to really have them turn out a superior product. We also want to be able to get people going sooner on their own kilts–it sometimes seems that the first day is spent on a LOT of talking and not much sewing. Some of it is necessary, but I think we can arrange things so that people can use the time better. As always, we are thinking of fun stuff to do too. Just a heads-up: Returning kiltmakers should start planning their “Dressed to Kilt” fun fashion show kilt for the talent show.